Tag: free speech

AG pushes state level ‘Ministry of Truth’ critics say could jail conservatives who express mainstream views

A state attorney general is advocating for a bill some critics argue could punish outspoken conservatives as domestic extremists, KTTH‘s Jason Rantz reported Wednesday.

“Some conservative views, or anything [Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson] deems as ‘misinformation,’ are examples of ‘domestic extremism,'” Rantz said.

It’s the “most dangerous bill in legislative history,” the Seattle radio host added.

Washington is creating a state version of the ill-fated “Ministry of Truth,” according to Rantz and others who have analyzed the bill.

The controversial bill proposes the establishment of a commission on domestic violence extremism. Rep. Bill Ramos, a Democrat, sponsored the bill which would create the 13-member commission.

HB 1333 describes the duties of the proposed commission as involving efforts to “combat disinformation and misinformation” and collecting data on incidents of “domestic violent extremism,” the Center Square explains.

Though DVE is not explicitly defined in the bill, Ferguson has described the term as including noncriminal activities or speech, the outlet also says.

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Is The Left Harnessing Fake Antisemitic Attacks To Silence Americans’ Speech?

“Speech, expression and assembly” represent the triumvirate for truth.  Short of breaking existing laws around physical violence and incitement to physical violence, the more we have of all three, the closer we come to that more perfect union, offering the most freedom for the most people with the least government interference.  But in an age of internet technology with deep fakes, bots, hacks, and myriad pathways to craft and deliver mis- and dis-information, radical left-wingers can abuse and use those liberties to tarnish conservatives, desensitize our communities to certain phenomena, and squelch our freedoms.  It behooves individuals, our government, and even watchdog organizations to pause before reacting to information from somewhere on the internet.  

As an example, did you know that, on February 25, America’s neo-Nazi and White Supremacist groups sponsored a national “Day of Hate”? You probably didn’t hear anything about it unless you are Jewish and your inbox was inundated with emails from various Jewish organizations, synagogues, and even local condo boards, warning of “an online campaign by domestic violence extremists, calling for an anti-Semitic “Day of Hate.”

As it turned out, despite the terror this announcement caused in Jewish households and houses of worship across the country and as far away as Israel, the “Day of Hate” passed without incident, as reported in The Forward, a progressive Jewish publication.

It’s good that nothing happened. The last thing anyone wants, including this skeptic, is more violence. But anti-Semitism is on the march, and we must monitor and be aware of it no matter the source—white supremacists, non-white supremacists, Antifa, or Islamic extremists. The problem for Jews and non-Jews alike, as evidenced by the “Day of Hate” that never happened, is that America’s politicians, journalists, and activists are only concerned with anti-Semitism coming from white people.

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6 Ways The Censorship Complex Silences Speech It Doesn’t Want You To Say Or Hear

Since Trump entered the political arena and proved the efficacy of sidestepping the legacy media and speaking directly to the people, a cabal of government agencies, politicians, academia, nonprofits, the corrupt press, and Big Tech have joined forces to erect a Censorship Complex. Collaboration, funding, and groupthink connect these players, and an analysis of their functioning reveals six ways they operate to censor speech in America.

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Is Religious Freedom And Freedom Of Speech And Worship Dead In Biden’s America?

On February 10, 2023, Jason S. Miyares, Attorney General of Virginia, along with 19 other Attorneys General, issued their own response. 

The attorneys general seven-page letter was addressed to Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray. 

“This country was founded on the right of all people to worship in the church, mosque, or synagogue of their choice, free from government. Countless millions were drawn to our country because of that very right. Indeed, some of our first States were founded as safe havens for religious dissenters. There is no right more sacred to American democracy than the right to worship freely,” reads the letter. 

In further response, Bishop Knestouts of the Richmond, Virginia  Catholic diocese issued a statement on Feb. 13, 2023. 

“I was alarmed to read the reports written late last week about the contents of the internal memo created by the Richmond Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I was also surprised to learn of the mention of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter (FSSP), a religious order, which celebrates the traditional form of the Catholic Mass. FSSP has served with devotion for many years the parishes within our Catholic community and to the faithful of our diocese who appreciate this form of the Catholic Mass in our diocese,” wrote Bishop Knestouts. 

“The leaked document should be troubling and offensive to all communities of faith, as well as all Americans. I am grateful for the Virginia Attorney General and 19 attorneys general who have called upon the government to publicly release all materials related to the production of this memo. If evidence of extremism exists, it should be rooted out, but not at the expense of religious freedom. A preference for traditional forms of worship and holding closely to the Church’s teachings on marriage, family, human sexuality, and the dignity of the human person does not equate with extremism, the Bishop added. 

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UN says that censoring “disinformation” and “hate speech” will protect “free speech”

The UN is openly embracing the agenda of mobilizing to fight against perceived online hate speech and disinformation. The latest was to organize an event called, Internet for Trust.

The unelected and well-funded organization whose purpose primarily is to facilitate conflict resolution in the real world and provide peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance in war-torn areas, is now increasingly following in the footsteps of other unelected, though less formal elite groups, like the WEF.

Now, we have announcements from one of its agencies, UNESCO – that is supposed to promote world peace and security through international education, arts and sciences cooperation, and protection of world heritage in forms of monuments, etc. – crafting its very own “guidelines” to regulate “hate speech” and “misinformation.”

According to an announcement, UNESCO has found a way to explain how (but not when or why) it started to believe it should have this power to regulate online communications by citing its mandate to promote free circulation of ideas through words and images.

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“Free Speech For Whom?”: Former Twitter Exec Makes Chilling Admission On The “Nuanced” Standard Used For Censorship

Yesterday’s hearing of the House Oversight Committee featured three former Twitter executives who are at the center of the growing censorship scandal involving the company: Twitter’s former chief legal officer Vijaya Gadde, former deputy general counsel James Baker and former head of trust and safety Yoel Roth.

However, it was the testimony of the only witness called by the Democrats that proved the most enlightening and chilling.

Former executive Twitter Anika Collier Navaroli testified on what she repeatedly called the “nuanced” standard used by her and her staff on censorship.

Toward the end of the hearing, she was asked about that standard by Rep. Melanie Ann Stansbury (D., NM). Her answer captured precisely why Twitter’s censorship system proved a nightmare for free expression. Stansbury’s agreement with her take on censorship only magnified the concerns over the protection of free speech on social media.

Even before Stansbury’s question, the hearing had troubling moments. Ranking Member Rep. Jamie Raskin (D., Md) opened up the hearing that insisting that Twitter has not censored enough and suggested that it was still fueling violence by allowing disinformation to be posted on the platform.

Navaroli then testified how she felt that there should have been much more censorship and how she fought with the company to remove more material that she and her staff considered “dog whistles” and “coded” messaging.

Rep. Stansbury asked what Twitter has done and is doing to combat hate speech on its platform. Navaroli correctly declined to address current policies since she has not been at the company for some time. However, she then said that they balanced free speech against safety and explained that they sought a different approach:

“Instead of asking just free speech versus safety to say free speech for whom and public safety for whom. So whose free expression are we protecting at the expense of whose safety and whose safety are we willing to allow to go the winds so that people can speak freely.”

Rep. Stansbury responded by saying  “Exactly.”

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The UN calls for a “code of conduct” on social media

The United Nations is becoming heavily involved in several initiatives to regulate the digital space and online speech, and judging by the priorities the organization has for 2023, outlined on Monday in New York City, this trend is only picking up steam.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres spoke about those priorities and suppressing the spread of online “hate” speech via what he called misinformation and disinformation made it to the list, among issues like rights-based approach, renewable energy, and a dire warning about the world being closer than ever to total catastrophe – all mentioned in his speech.

Guterres spoke about the subject of “mis- and disinformation” on the internet as a call for action to deal with these threats.

And Guterres had “everyone with influence” in mind – governments, regulators, policymakers, technology companies, the media, civil society. It’s notable that he “squeezed in” this warning about the need to “stop the hate” on the internet in the same paragraph he spoke about UN outreach programs that concern the Holocaust and the Rwanda genocide.

He then moved on to the UN Strategy and Plan of Action on Hate Speech, which included the “call for action.”

“Stop the hate. Set up strong guardrails. Be accountable for language that causes harm,” the UN secretary-general said and explaining the plan on how to do that: by creating a code of conduct for information integrity on digital platforms.

This, Guterres noted, is part of his 2021 report titled, “Our Common Agenda.” In May 2022, a meeting was held at the UN by delegates who gathered to discuss what was dramatically dubbed as “the epidemic of misinformation and disinformation.”

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Most Important First Amendment Case You’ve Never Heard Of: Biden Regime Tries to Toss a Young Man in Jail for 10 Years for Anti-Hillary Memes

Douglass Mackey is alleged to be one of the many anonymous Twitter users who made the 2016 election so different, so memorable, and so important.

Like other anonymous internet memesmiths (anons), Mackey had no external reason that anyone should care what he said. He held no office. He had no byline at an elite publication. He had no vast pool of wealth that conferred legitimacy, deserved or undeserved, on what he had to say.

Mackey’s notability, like that of Bronze Age Pervert or Libs of TikTok, came exclusively from what he had to say, and that people found it funny and compelling. Over the summer and fall of 2016, Mackey allegedly went by the nom-de-tweet Ricky Vaughn (after Charlie Sheen’s character in Major League) and collected tens of thousands of followers who found him funny and compelling. Mackey was not single-handedly responsible for getting Donald Trump elected. But the work he allegedly did along with dozens of others is what made Trump’s victory possible. An MIT analysis estimated that Ricky Vaughn was a bigger influence on the 2016 election than NBC News.

But for the regime, the specter of anonymous individuals making the system tremble was too much. And so, for more than two years, the regime has been battling to send Mackey to prison.

You might not know much about Mackey’s case. It’s far less notorious than the January 6 prosecutions, or the murder trial of Kyle Rittenhouse. But in terms of how much the speech matters for American liberty, it is as important as either of those — perhaps more so. 

In January 2021, shortly after the January 6 incident inaugurated a national anti-MAGA crackdown, the Department of Justice charged Mackey with “conspiring … to deprive individuals of their constitutional right to vote.”

Mackey’s offense? Illegal memes.

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Virginia Democrat Introduces Bill to ‘Remove Hate Speech From Public Places’

A Virginia Democrat has introduced a bill to “remove hate speech from public places.”

Del. Suhas Subramanyam introduced the bill in response to “antisemitic incidents” in the state.

If passed, the bill will require the government to remove any graffiti that is deemed to be hateful on the taxpayer’s dime, including on private property, if the owner fails to do so themselves.

“It’s been bad enough that we had to endure these incidents of racist and antisemitic graffiti, but it’s made worse when no one takes responsibility for the clean up and they remain in the public’s eye,” Subramanyam told WUSA9. “This bill would address that. Hate has no place in Virginia, and our diversity and unity is what makes us strong.”

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MIT Goes Against the Grain, Releases a Stunning Statement Endorsing Free Speech

Surprise — the Massachusetts Institute of Technology endorses students’ liberty to engage in offensive speech…officially.

In contrast to castigations of “hate speech” and the increasingly common notion that “hate speech isn’t free speech,” MIT is siding with the Constitution.

On December 21st, the Cambridge private land-grant research university released a Free Expression Statement.

From the document:

Free expression is a necessary, though not sufficient, condition of a diverse and inclusive community. We cannot have a truly free community of expression if some perspectives can be heard and others cannot. Learning from a diversity of viewpoints, and from the deliberation, debate, and dissent that accompany them, are essential ingredients of academic excellence.

Free expression promotes creativity by affirming the ability to exchange ideas without constraints. It not only facilitates individual autonomy and self-fulfillment, it provides for participation in collective decision-making and is essential to the search for truth and justice. … Academic freedom promotes scholarly rigor and the testing of ideas by protecting research, publication, and teaching from interference.

That principle means on-campus guests can’t be relegated to a single perspective:

A commitment to free expression includes hearing and hosting speakers, including those whose views or opinions may not be shared by many members of the MIT community and may be harmful to some. This commitment includes the freedom to criticize and peacefully protest speakers to whom one may object, but it does not extend to suppressing or restricting such speakers from expressing their views. Debate and deliberation of controversial ideas are hallmarks of the Institute’s educational and research missions and are essential to the pursuit of truth, knowledge, equity, and justice.

The school makes clear things such as “direct threats, harassment, plagiarism, or other speech that falls outside the boundaries of the First Amendment” won’t be protected. Furthermore, it expects “a collegial and respectful learning and working environment.”

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